


below the surface

by evitably



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, Angst, Community: blindfold_spn, F/M, Incest, Parent/Child Incest, Pining, Substitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-25
Updated: 2011-01-25
Packaged: 2017-10-21 21:43:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evitably/pseuds/evitably
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is not her father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	below the surface

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/blindfold_spn/profile)[**blindfold_spn**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/blindfold_spn/). Originally posted [here](http://community.livejournal.com/blindfold_spn/3417.html?thread=3681113#t3681113%22).

Claire isn't supposed to be at Camp Chitaqua. If her mom had her say, Claire wouldn’t be anywhere near the apocalypse.

But Amelia doesn’t get a say anymore. She’s dead. Or worse: a croat. All Claire remembers from that day are knives and shouts and screaming. She still has the scar on her upper thigh from the vicious machete some croat had wielded.

Claire doesn't remember anything else. She doesn't remember Amelia's face or how she'd managed to escape. She's chosen to forget. Sometimes she dreams.

All in all, Camp Chitaqua isn't a bad place to stay. There's plenty of food and the other refugees are relatively good company. She's heard that things could be worse.

And then there's Castiel.

It was Castiel who sought her out, not the other way around. Claire didn't know he was there. He showed up one day and watched her sorting ammunition until she noticed him. Her heart thumped in her chest hard and insistent, climbing into her throat until she choked on it.

She said, "Dad?"

Castiel smiled, and she started smiling in return, but then he said, "No."

She didn’t say anything for a very long time. He never came back to her tent in the refugee section of camp.

Claire was the one to go to him.

*

Castiel is nothing like Jimmy Novak. He hates shaving. He slouches. He does drugs and drinks himself into a stupor until his eyes cross. Castiel moves with deliberate fluidity that tells her he's still not used to Jimmy Novak's body; that he's aware of every single thing he does with it. Every twitch, every movement, every smile or frown, they are all calculated and cold, like Castiel cares more about how this new body of his works rather than what goes on around it.

At first it makes Claire cry when he isn’t looking (and sometimes when he does, when she can’t stop herself), how he just doesn't care. Sometimes she calls him 'Dad' by mistake and whenever she does, he looks at her, body gone utterly still, until she corrects herself and calls him 'Castiel'.

She hears how the other soldiers call him 'Cas', and she wants to do that so bad that it hurts, but at the same time just _thinking_ of Castiel as Cas makes her stomach turn and she hates him like she's never hated anybody.

Castiel never once invites her, but when he sees her at his door, he keeps it open for her to come in.

They don't talk.

*

Claire sees the women that come and go out of Castiel's cabin. They're hard to miss, especially when she sits on the floor next to Castiel's door, waiting for him to open it for her.

She hates how she's second place. She hates how she has to wait. She wants to see her father ( _I am not your father_ ), not the stand-offish, strange, _alien_ being that is wearing his skin. She takes what she can.

It's during those times that she feels tiny and small and fragile, and she wants to hug her parents and have them tell her that everything is going to be okay.

*

She forgets. When Castiel opens the door for her, she is sixteen and angry and sad and confused, and all she wants is a hug.

Castiel freezes between her arms, stands as still as stone. But Claire can feel the way his chest rises and falls with every breath, the smell of fresh sweat and another bitter, warm scent that lingers right under his skin. His breath ruffles her hair, and everything is familiar and new all at once, and suddenly she finds herself sobbing.

His arms circle her, then, tentatively, pressing her tighter against him, and she clings. He puts his mouth against her hair and stays like that until she's calm enough to say, "I miss him."

Castiel's voice reverberates in his chest as he says quietly, "Claire, I'm not him. He's not coming back."

Claire pushes him away, both her palms on his chest.

Castiel says, “You should go.”

*

She returns to Castiel after dark. She's never been at that side of camp past sunset. The word ‘curfew’ is never actually said, but that’s what it is. She sneaks past the patrols, the other soldiers who'll know she doesn't belong, and goes to Castiel.

He looks her up and down, tilts his head, and lets her in. "You shouldn't be here," he says.

Claire stands there, staring at him. She can barely hear him over her heartbeat. She's trembling, slow tremors that make the hair on her arms and nape of her neck stand on end. Her mouth is dry. She licks her lips; they tingle.

Castiel shuts the door without another word. Claire can hear the soft _snick_ even though she's not listening for it. He turns to face her, leans against the door -- hips jutting to the side.

"What are you doing here, Claire?" Castiel asks.

Claire can't answer. Saying the words will make them real, and she doesn't want to face reality, not now. Not ever. Not with her all alone and being at touching distance from what used to be her father.

She'll take from him what he can give. It isn't like he'll go out of his way to give her anything more. She takes a step forward, and another, until she can feel the heat of him from beneath his clothes. She walks into his personal space and buries her face in his chest, breathes him in as her arms snake around his waist.

She takes in a deep breath and presses a kiss to his shirt.

Castiel wrenches her away, holds her by the shoulders, and looks down at her almost to the point where she wants to run away.

"Please," she whispers. Her voice is cracked and dry and thick in her throat. She tries to smile but can't manage it, and feels tears start prickling at the corner of her eyes.

Castiel just keeps looking.

But when Claire moves closer to him again, he lets her, without taking his hands off of her. He leans down and almost presses his lips against hers. She gasps when she feels his breath but he's not moving. He asks, slowly, lowly, against her mouth, "Is this what you want?"

She says, "Yes," and closes the distance between them.

Claire keeps her eyes closed. She feels: Castiel's hands sliding down her back and under her shirt, across her stomach and dipping into the waistband of her pants. She holds onto his forearms when they start kissing for real, tongues entangled until they pull back for air and then again and again, Castiel rubbing circles right under her breasts with his thumbs. His calluses catch on her skin and make her shiver in a way that's nothing like the way she trembled only minutes before.

She wriggles against him until he breaks away and removes her shirt. She starts tugging on his, finally letting go of his arms and starting to explore, feels the way his muscles bunch under her hands, the sparse spread of hair across his stomach and chest. She tries going higher, but Castiel stops her, brings her hands back to his hips and says, "Don't," before starting to suckle on her neck.

There's heat tightening in Claire's belly, curling her fingers and toes and making her gasp. The chill air touches her back, caresses it, a contrast to Castiel's warmth in front of her.

Castiel runs his fingers across her back deliberately, along the dip of her spine, from her neck almost down to her ass, and then he brings them to the front and unzips her pants. She tries to return the favor, but once again he stops her, makes her keep her hands at a more respectable level. She whines in the back of her throat, frustrated. Castiel traces the line of her panties, slips a finger inside. "Let me," he says in a rough voice as he starts rubbing against her clit.

Claire mewls and goes lax, lets him do as he pleases. She throws her head back and jerks her hips closer to him, accidentally brushes against his erection.

Castiel recoils away. Claire freezes. He keeps moving his fingers, touches her gently, shifts his hand further down and into her, pressing against her walls, while his thumb rubs incessantly at her clit. She relaxes with her first moan and buries her head in his chest again, panting, breathing Castiel in. A droplet of sweat trails down her spine. It tickles.

Her eyes are still clenched shut. It's enough that she can feel Castiel's fingers and hear Castiel breathing shallowly in her ear. She keeps her hands firmly on his hips and her legs -- parted, pants half down her legs, panties shoved aside to allow Castiel easy access -- away from Castiel's. When Claire feels herself blush down to her belly, through her thighs to her toes, she digs her fingers into Castiel's skin and comes.

Moans: "Dad."

Castiel doesn't acknowledge her slip. He removes his hand, wipes it on his jeans right below Claire's hands, and leads her to another room. He strips her off, completely, and dresses her in an oversized shirt that reaches the middle of her thighs. He guides her into his bed and strokes her hair with the hand that he'd touched her with, while the other draws up the blankets around her. "Go to sleep, Claire."

She turns her head into his hand, smells herself on his skin, and sleeps.  



End file.
